In the racking of pocket pool or billiard balls prior to the initiation of play, the balls are traditionally placed in a triangular rack, the head ball located on the appropriate spot, the balls forced toward the front of the rack with the fingers (generally the thumbs) and the rack vertically and carefully removed from about the balls. During the removal of the rack from about the balls, it is not uncommon that one or more portions of the rack contacts the balls causing the rack to “loosen”. The occurrence of such a condition requires that the balls be “re-racked” until a tight i.e. all balls touching, rack is achieved. The traditional racking system is a simple triangular wooden or synthetic material that has an enclosed area slightly larger than the area taken up by the racked balls. One of the main deficiencies is that upon removal, it is very common to make contact with one or more balls and thus undo the tight rack that formerly was contained in the triangular form.
One prior art solution that attempted to improve on this system is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,342 to Newsome entitled “Billiard Rack.” This patent discloses a pocket pool or billiard rack that incorporates in its rearmost side outwardly and angularly extending lever portions that permit upward rotation of the billiard rack upon the application of downward pressure with the thumbs or other fingers prior to removal of the billiard rack about the balls in the ball racking operations. However, it is still possible with this racking system to inadvertently touch one or more balls and thus disturb the racked balls. It also requires significant manual dexterity to operate which may be lacking with those who play pool for a variety of reasons.
Another prior art solution is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,404 to Sardo entitled Racking System for Arranging Pool Balls. This patent shows a racking device that conforms to the shape and size of each individual pool ball that utilizes a plurality of sweeper pins to move the pool balls together into a tight formation, such that adjoining balls touch each other. The balls are then firmly pressed into the felt of the pool table by a plurality of pressure pins. Once the desired formation has been achieved, the racking device is removed without disturbing the racked pool balls. This fails to show a simple two sided V-shaped rack of the present invention.
Another prior art solution is to another racking system sold under the name THE SARDO TIGHT RACK®, among others models SARDO M-5000, M-3000, AND M-2000. The SARDO M-5000 is a V-shaped rack with a mating triangular top portion for centering and positioning the balls and may be used with 9 or 15 balls. This system requires a downward motion by the upper triangular shaped body that engages the balls directly upon downward pressure and thereby positions and racks the balls. The balls are racked in the same and may have the effect of preventing a random racking as with a conventional system. Its configuration prevents ready access to the balls from the side and does not show the inventive benefits of the present invention.
The design of a rack that permits even the most inexperienced player to properly rack the balls without the possibility of “loosening” the rack in the process of removal of the billiard rack would be of significant benefit to the pool and billiard playing community.